Originally Posted by
Smokeyboy
Opinions, clarification?
I'm not a pilot. Working in Airport maintenance and observed while removing snow, aircraft taxiing for T/O with snow on the fuselage. Never in my 39 years at the airport seen this. Every other aircraft de-iced completely this day. Spoke to the de-ice crew a couple of days after and asked them. Happened to be the same crew that de-iced this very aircraft. They asked the cockpit crew twice if they were sure that they didn't want the snow removed from the fuselage. Negative, wings and stabilizer only. They were suprised as well but, pilots decision. If it isn't necessary, airlines could save a lot of money and would benefit the environment.
"The Flight Crew Operating Manual allows takeoff with a certain amount of frost on certain parts of the aircraft (a frost layer less than 3mm (1/8 inch) on the underside of the wings, in the area of fuel tanks and a thin layer of rime or a light coating of powdery (loose) snow on the upper surface of the fuselage." (Airbus GTG with cold weather operations).
To me, the above does not look like a light coating of powdery snow or thin hoarfrost. I would have definitely asked for fuselage de-icing.
edit - disclaimer: It is obviously difficult to judge from a picture taken from distance probably with a mobile phone.